Fallout Dusty Trails
by JTWedding
Summary: Through the wastelands, tracker Jed Freeman follows a man and his dog in hopes of recovering an object for his boss. Arriving in Junktown he finds the man has met a less than desirable fate and plans to find his body. Takes place shortly before Fallout 1.
1. The Scrap Heap

Standing, a figure clad in brown overlooks the valley before him. A long cold fire pit lies at his feet. Chewing on a piece of xander root, he squints into the low setting sun. Night time was ideal for traveling in these hellish wastes. After a few days of trying to make time during the scorching hot days, he wised up. He started looking for shade by mid-morning and resting until sunset.

It'd been several weeks he spent like this, traveling at night, trying to keep on the man's trail as best he could. He figured now he was maybe 3 or 4 days behind and gaining. Tracking out in the wastes was a chore, luckily his prey wasn't too careful. Going from shit pile to piss trail to fire pit was keeping him on track.

Looking out into the western horizon he spotted a small shanty. He'd stop and ask about towns nearby, maybe where the closest spot was to get laid, and then he'd slip in a word about how he was looking for a friend of his. Guy who wore all black, talked funny and had a dog with him. With any luck they'd spill the beans.

Approaching the first shanty he'd been spotted by an elderly man with long white hair and a big red shiny bald patch on top. When approached he let out a greeting, "Howdy!"

Biting the root in the corner of his mouth the tracker answered, "Howdy to you. You got water?"  
"Yeah we got water, cost you a few caps to fill up here though," the old man stood with a grin on his face perching an arm on a car bumper that was being used as a fencepost. "Where you coming from?"

"Back east."

The old man cracked a smile, "Ain't that sumthin', not three days ago first man I've ever seen coming from your direction said the same damn thing. There ain't nothing goin' on out there we folks should be worried about, now?"

The man went straight for it, he could cut the shit and get straight to it, "No, nothing more than's probably going on here. The fellow you mentioned, he have a dog following him around?"

"Sure did, was pretty well attached to that thing too. I offered a few caps for it, even offered to let him come eat the thing with me, but he turned it down. Almost seemed offended at the idea, oh well, some folks just don't know good eatin', eh?" He was smiling wide revealing a mouth full of gums.

The tracker lifted his waterbag, asking, "Uh, water?" The old man pointed to a hand pump not 15 feet away. Walking toward it the tracker said, "Actually, he's a friend of mine. I got caught up a few weeks back and been trying to catch up with him. How long ago did you say he came through here?"

Unlocking the pump, the old man grabbed the water bag and directed the tracker, "You pump, I'll keep your bag on. He came through three days ago. I don't know where he was headed, but when he got here he didn't know much. Asked about the nearest town, I told him about Junktown. Best to steer clear of the Hub, some mean bastards, there. Yessiree!"

Interjecting, the tracker asked, "How do I get to Junktown from here?"  
"Head north 'til you come across a game trail running west. You'll follow it for a ways. It turns north eventually but you'll see that scrap heap before then."

The water bag started to overflow.

"Whoa, stop! Don't like to waste here."

The old man scraped the stray water from the sides of the bladder and lapped it up from his palm.

Twisting off the water bag, the drifter pulled out a small pouch and handed it to the man.

When the geezer looked inside his eyes got wide and his toothless grin broke from ear to ear.

"Why that's generous as hell."

"Don't mention it. You got any dried food handy?"

"Sure do, let me get some for ya."

The old man ran into his shanty with a little hop in his skip. When he returned he had a Brahmin hide bag stuffed to the brim. "Put a little xander root in there for you too." Handing over the bag he gave the tracker a wink.

"Thank you , kindly. I best get going now. You take care, old man." And with that he threw his supplies over his shoulder and walked off into the sunset.


	2. Jed, Junktown Junktown, Jed

Junktown had to be the least creative name in the wastes. It was literally a town contructed of junk. Rusted obsolete machinery, cars of various makes and models and other indistinguishable scraps made up a wall around the town's perimeter. One entrance, made out of some old tunnel conduit it looked like, served as the gate. It was heavily guarded but getting in was a snap. The guard, a young guy who was prematurely balding and smelled something awful, gave him a warning about minding his own beeswax and pointed him in the direction of Killian Darkwater's store, also creatively named, "Dark Waters". He told the tracker how Killian was the man to talk to if you had town business, so off to Dark Waters he went.

Killian told the tracker how he heard of the man, and how he'd left his dog near a local man's house, but wasn't aware of where he'd gone or what happened to him. So the tracker bid him ado and made way to this man's house to get reacquainted with old dogmeat.

Upon approaching the house he saw a man sitting near the corner, elbows in his knees, resting his head on his hands and starring toward the entrance of the home where dogmeat stood with his mangy tail wagging and wet dog tongue sticking out.

The tracker pulled the root out of his mouth and tipped the brim of his hat with one motion. He looked from the dog to the man and back again.

"You Phil?" asked the tracker.

Without looking up the man muttered through his palms, "Yessir."

"My name is Jed. Jed Freeman. I see you're an acquaintance of my old pal, Dogmeat."

Phil's face perked up and he looked at Jed.  
"You know the dog?"  
"Sure do."  
"Well can you get the damn thing away from my house?"  
"I don't know, ole dogmeat is a stubborn son of one. Either way, I'm not interested in dogs so much as their masters."

Phil went back to wallowing, "You mean that bastard that left me this vermin?"

"Might be, talks funny, has a hankering for black leather. You wouldn't happen to know where he is would you?"  
"Somewhere rottin' in the desert. He was messing with Gizmo's… He runs the casino. Yer friend was messing with Gizmo's business. So Gizmo had the Skulz take care of things. Hope you two weren't real close."  
Jed's face was straight. Not one smidgen of an emotion cracked across his long mug. "You know where I can find one of these Skulz characters?"  
"They usually hang out at the Inn just over there." He pointed towards a large building a few hundred yards south. "If I were you I'd be careful though. Those Skulz, Gizmo, all of 'em are nothing but bad news."

"Thanks for the advice." Reaching into his satchel, Jed pulled out a few caps and tossed them on the ground in front of Phil. "Get some Brahmin meat for that dog. He'll probably love you for life."

"No thank you, damn dog won't let me near my house. I'm hoping he starves to death so I can have my house back." Phil picked up the caps. "Maybe I can get a room tonight and sleep inside like a damned human being."

Sticking the root back into his mouth, Jed wished him 'good luck' with that and made his way to the inn.


	3. Gizmo's Bizness

Sucking the marrow from a Brahmin bone, Gizmo made a sucking noise that made Izo's stomach lurch. Gizmo was a fat ass, no way around it. Most of his day he spent sitting on his fat ass, eating fat ass food, putting more fat on his fat fucking ass. Being a pugilist, and general fitness freak, Izo found everything about Gizmo disgusting, everything but the pay that is.

In contrast to Gizmo's fat ass, Izo was trim. He met Gizmo while he was fighting his way up through the ranks. In his day he'd been the undisputed bare knuckle champ of the wastes. One time some sucker tried to sneak up on him with a power fist, almost cleaned Izo's clock, but he couldn't handle the damn thing so Izo busted his face up good. Izo liked doing that, busting faces up. It was the other reason he liked working for Gizmo.

Izo stood there watching Gizmo stuff his face, waiting for him to finish. Gizmo didn't like being interrupted while he ate. Izo tried to count how many ribs were sitting on the desk now, but unfortunately he couldn't count past two hands worth of fingers. As Gizmo set down a bone picked clean, he wiped his mouth with a greasy paw and turned his attention to the door.  
"What is it?"  
"Your man, Kenji, is here to see you, sir." Izo stood with his arms crossed and his spine straight.

When Gizmo talked he made a sound like sucking drool, "Send him in."

Gizmo was patting his face with a stained cloth when Kenji came pussyfootin' in the door. Gizmo gave a glare that made him curl up into his boots.  
"You'd better be here to tell me somethin' good."  
Kenji shrunk a little more. "Not yet, but soon. It's…It's hard to catch him when he's not surrounded by his guards, Gizmo."

Gizmo pounded a fist on his table, "Of course he's always around his guards. What did you think, he'd go prancing through some dark alley waiting for you to pop him off. Grow some fucking balls, run in there, put the gun in his mouth and blow his brains out. If you run out fast enough you might be able to keep from shitting your little panties in front of everybody." Gizmo gave a gargled laughed, and choked on some unchewed piece of something or other, spitting it out on to the table. Then picked it up, put it back in this mouth and swallowed.

"I'll have it done by next week."  
"Have it done by tomorrow, or Killian's guards will be the least of your troubles! Izo take out a few teeth and get him the fuck out of my site."

Kenji's knees buckled as Izo grabbed his shoulder.

"Let's go."

Walking through the casino floor, urine started dribbling down Kenji's pant leg.

"Why you take work from Gizmo if you can't handle it, dumbshit?"

"I.I…I…IIIII…," Kenji stuttered.

"You, you, you…what?" mocked Izo.

Pushing him out the side door, Izo took his left glove off.

"I'll let you know I don't enjoy wasting my hands on a low life like you, but unlike somebody I know how to deliver on my orders."

"Wai…"

Pop! Izo rapped him with a cross, square in the mouth. A few teeth flew as Kenji went head over heels. Izo could feel the teeth he connected with giving way to his fist. It was a feeling he lived for. Only thing that got his rocks off more was a clean knockout.  
Kenji shook his head, getting his marbles back in the right order and shuffling to his elbows he squealed, "MY TEEF!"

"Be glad it wasn't my right hand, fuckin' puta!" Izo punched his palm intimidating Kenji further. He could feel wetness and something hard against his palm and when he looked down he saw gashes in his knuckles and a tooth lodged between his index and middle knuckle. Pulling it out he offered it to the toothless man, "Here you go." He threw the tooth in Kenji's lap and shut the door behind him.


End file.
